Tag: Center for Audit Quality

As you may recall, auditors of large accelerated filers will be required to report on CAMs—critical audit matters—in their auditor’s reports for fiscal years ending on or after June 30, 2019 and in auditor’s reports for all other companies (except EGCs) to which the requirements apply for fiscal years ending on or after December 15, 2020. (See this PubCo post.) As SEC Commissioner Kara Stein observed in her statement on approval of the new rule, the new “standard marks the first significant change to the auditor’s report in more than 70 years.” Because the selection of and disclosure regarding CAMs will certainly present a challenge for both auditors and audit committees, auditors have been taking steps to prepare for the coming change, including conducting “dry runs” to get a better handle on how the new CAM disclosures will look and how the process will affect financial reporting. To provide some lessons learned from these early dry runs and enhance the understanding of audit committees, auditors and other participants in the process, the Center for Audit Quality has published Critical Audit Matters: Lessons Learned, Questions to Consider, and an Illustrative Example.

The Center for Audit Quality, working with Audit Analytics, has just released a new edition of its annual Audit Committee Transparency Barometer, which, over the past five years, has measured the robustness of audit committee disclosures in proxy statements among companies in the S&P Composite 1500. The bottom line, according to the CAQ, is that the level of voluntary transparency has continued to steadily increase in most areas. The report includes several useful examples of the types of disclosure discussed.

The Center for Audit Quality has just issued Cybersecurity Risk Management Oversight: A Tool for Board Members. The tool offers questions that directors can ask of management and the auditors as part of their oversight of cybersecurity risks and disclosures. The questions are designed to initiate dialogue to clarify the role of the auditor in connection with cybersecurity risk assessment in the context of the audit of the financial statements and internal control over financial reporting (ICFR), and to help the board understand how the company is managing its cybersecurity risks.

The Center for Audit Quality has issued a new guide for audit committees related to non-GAAP financial measures. Based on information gained from a series of roundtables held in 2017, Non-GAAP Measures: A Roadmap for Audit Committees identifies common themes and key considerations for audit committees, including leading practices to help assess whether a company’s non-GAAP measures present “high-quality non-GAAP measures.” And what exactly is a “high-quality non-GAAP measure”? According to the CAQ, a non-GAAP measure is high-quality if it provides a “balanced representation of the company’s performance.”

Earlier this month, the Center for Audit Quality together with Audit Analytics posted their annual Audit Committee Transparency Barometer, which measured the quality of proxy disclosures regarding audit committees among companies in the S&P Composite 1500. The report shows continued voluntary enhancements to transparency and broadly increased disclosure around audit committee oversight of the external auditor. The report includes several useful examples of the types of disclosure discussed.

Remember Form AP? That’s the form that the PCAOB is now requiring audit firms to use to name individual audit engagement partners. The form will also disclose the names and Firm IDs, locations and extent of participation of any other accounting firms, outside of the principal auditor, that participated in the audit, if their work constituted 5% or more of the total audit hours. (See this PubCo post.) Should companies care? Yes, says the Center for Audit Quality: the disclosures made in Form AP can help audit committee members in satisfying their responsibilities to oversee the engagement audit firm as well as other audit participants.

by Cydney Posner As discussed in this PubCo post, the SEC’s Office of the Chief Accountant has continued to beat the drums to encourage companies and their audit committees to hunker down and address the impending effectiveness in 2018 of the new revenue recognition standard, particularly with respect to assessment […]

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